CT vulnerabilities to persistent climate extremes

[TI4Dan]

"I have done so much work on the engine" That's kind of the point. Reliable cars need less work. Though a '94 Anything will probably need a lot of TLC to stay on the road.

Early indications are the Tesla's are pretty good for reliability, we'll see if that holds up as we get more data.

Many decades ago a Newspaper asked a question to car owners How long have you owned your car and what have you done to it. The winner over Mercedes, BMW and few other cars was a Toyota Celica....well over 500K miles well documented by her dealership.
At the time she set aside $200 dallor a month for maintenance. Most of my maintenance was preventative not a break down. In 23 years my car was towed once for a failed hose.
I have driven across the US and many mountain and desert trails. I have worked in the transportation field for 30 years and getting ahead of a problem is maintenance which no vehicle is excluded from and don't get me wrong here, not say CT going to be unreliable it's no different from other cars. I have made plans for its upkeep already since I have to drive two states over at this time to gets its maintenance performed. I am not making a case to anyone on to keep the old car but just saying its a commitment to own a car or truck for more than a decade. Plenty of people here on the forums have expressed their desire to keep CT for a long time and I certainly am one of them. I hope also that the Dual Motor that I have on reservation is the best truck I will ever own. When I came to the forums I had no idea so many folks here want to keep CT for a very long time. I am not the average owner in terms of keeping a vehicle but here it seems like I am among many. So I hope that many future owners here have nothing but good things to say about CT.

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[TI4Dan]

While I cant speak for the reliability of the materials.. My Land Rover has actually been one of the MOST mechanically reliable vehicles I have owned.. It put my Jeep to shame and my Fathers 2018 Chevy interior is already falling apart.

Mine runs like the day I bought it, I have towed cars bigger than Diso up Siskiyou mountains in Northern Ca. and soutrher Oregon. Never overheated during the summer months going up the steep climbs could not go 30 mph but faster than walking.

 

[firsttruck]

It would be nice if Tesla offered the option of Armor Glass or a steel roof. I doubt if it will happen for production reasons.

I do not see why there is so much pessimisim about Tesla offering an option for solid metal roof. The product is still being designed, factory building shell is not even up yet, and Cybertrucks are probably at least 6 months away. Tesla has not even given final specs.

2012 Tesla Model S had options of solid metal roof (standard) or active panorama sun roof ($2,000).

In 2016 there was no major redesign of Model S.
But in 2016, Tesla raised the price of Model S by $1,500 while taking some features away. At the same time they added glass roof option for $1,500. So then there was three choices for roofs of an already in production car without a redesign.

 

[hobbit11]

Land Rovers are known to be among the very least reliable vehicles on the market. I would expect just about anything to last longer and better.

yup

 

[Crissa]

My Mazda 3 has sat outside nearly all its life and it looks new until you look at the wear in the front seats.

Of course, it's only been towed once: When it got hit while sitting in our parking enclosure. Damaged a wheel and it wasn't safe to drive.

-Crissa

 

[firsttruck]

My Mazda 3 has sat outside nearly all its life and it looks new until you look at the wear in the front seats.
...
When it got hit while sitting in our parking enclosure. Damaged a wheel and it wasn't safe to drive.

I used to develop disaster recover plans for data centers. The usual things to look at were fire, flood, tornado, etc.

Well one day got a call to visit a new customer to make a plan after a disater had already happened. Unfortunately this is very common. Most do not value insurance until after they had a loss. This place had a active (several high-speed trains a day) railroad line next to one side of the building. The interior side of this wall was the data center. Well one day there was a disaster. A passing train had one of their huge steel train car wheels break off and the wheel went straight thru the wall into the data center and destroyrd the mainframe computer that was used to manage the entire business! The business was down for weeks because in those days you could not just run down to Best Buy and buy enough computing resources to run a business.

 

[Ehninger1212]

I never understood who would buy a LR or RR as all these issues plus many more are well known. Keeping one past its warranty is asking for trouble.

Jeep is an extremely low bar to set.

Mine was well out of warranty when I got it, 180k miles right now. Only had basic maintenance and some wear items.

The real deal killer with these is the labor cost associated, luckily I was a mechanic before I got into architecture, I only took it to a dealer once for a software update.

I was under the hood of my Jeep what seemed like every week and my land rover has lived a much harder life.

Not trying to convince anyone to buy one. I expect the CT to be 100X more robust.

 

[Ehninger1212]

Mine runs like the day I bought it, I have towed cars bigger than Diso up Siskiyou mountains in Northern Ca. and soutrher Oregon. Never overheated during the summer months going up the steep climbs could not go 30 mph but faster than walking.

Oh I believe it, they can go anywhere.. just not very fast. Mine has become a part of the family, not going anywhere. I have actually been contemplating some sort of EV conversion.

 

[FutureBoy]

Oh I believe it, they can go anywhere.. just not very fast. Mine has become a part of the family, not going anywhere. I have actually been contemplating some sort of EV conversion.

Upgrading it to a CT is one sort of EV conversion. LOL.

I actually have a 1950 Ford F1 wasting away in my backyard. It was my grandfather’s and I used to play in it as a kid. Oh the dreams of restoring it and converting to full electric. But the way things are going, it might just have to be converted to a CT.

 

[Dids]

The fewer seals the better.

Full glass roofs will have higher long-term costs too compared to welded in solid metal roof. For durability and minimal TCO, want cold rolled stainless steel roof.

Do you want a metal roof?

 

[Crissa]

Do you want a metal roof?

I wonder if they know a weld is also a seal?

-Crissa

 

[firsttruck]

Do you want a metal roof?

Absoluety , yes but I think you already knew that.

I wonder if they know a weld is also a seal?

Doing solid steel roof on Cybertruck may or may not involve a joint or seam.
Tesla might make roof & part of the side of Cybertruck from one sheet of steel that has been scored & bent. No joint welding and no sealing of multiple pieces.

Who "they" are you talking about?

I have worked a lot of years in metal fabrication and the most common term the places I worked at used was "joint" or "seam" .

We would only mostly only use the word "seal" as a verb if we were welding a section that would close the formal entrance/exit point of a container usually a filler or vent pipe (not often a large plate of steel).

In my reference "seal" is usually a different material from from that on either side.
Like
glass - rubber / silicone / cork / urethane / acrylic based sealant - metal

The seal usually has three purposes
1. block liquid or air from flowing thru the joint
2. cushion the one side from the other. In this case protect glass from metal.
3. expansion joint. As temperate changes material can expand or shrink. Because the two sides are many times of different material they can expand at widely different amounts at the same temperature. If both sides are same material, many times this expansion is not a problem but that is not always true. Sometimes when working with large pieces or long strips you will have to purposely cut material off and make a joint with a flexible seal in between the two ends of material then continue on for some distance.

properly welded joints can be stronger than each if the side.

the sealant in sealed joints is almost always a material that time or heat/cold cycles will degrade then allowing leaks.

 

[Dids]

Absoluety , yes but I think you already knew that.



Doing solid steel roof on Cybertruck may or may not involve a joint or seam.
Tesla might make roof & part of the side of Cybertruck from one sheet of steel that has been scored & bent. No joint welding and no sealing of multiple pieces.

Who "they" are you talking about?

I have worked a lot of years in metal fabrication and the most common term the places I worked at used was "joint" or "seam" .

We would only mostly only use the word "seal" as a verb if we were welding a section that would close the formal entrance/exit point of a container usually a filler or vent pipe (not often a large plate of steel).

In my reference "seal" is usually a different material from from that on either side.
Like
glass - rubber / silicone / cork / urethane / acrylic based sealant - metal

The seal usually has three purposes
1. block liquid or air from flowing thru the joint
2. cushion the one side from the other. In this case protect glass from metal.
3. expansion joint. As temperate changes material can expand or shrink. Because the two sides are many times of different material they can expand at widely different amounts at the same temperature. If both sides are same material, many times this expansion is not a problem but that is not always true. Sometimes when working with large pieces or long strips you will have to purposely cut material off and make a joint with a flexible seal in between the two ends of material then continue on for some distance.

properly welded joints can be stronger than each if the side.

the sealant in sealed joints is almost always a material that time or heat/cold cycles will degrade then allowing leaks.

Yes I knew that... but here is the thing. I want a pass through... am I going to get with CT? Very unlikely. Are you going to get a metal roof? Very unlikely. I guess we will know in Dec... I can't wait for Dec. I'm going insane.

 

[TheLastStarfighter]

Yes I knew that... but here is the thing. I want a pass through... am I going to get with CT? Very unlikely. Are you going to get a metal roof? Very unlikely. I guess we will know in Dec... I can't wait for Dec. I'm going insane.

I think a pass-through of some kind is actually very likely. A true mid-gate is doubtful. The chances of a metal roof on a Tesla? Almost zero.

 

[firsttruck]

Yes I knew that... but here is the thing. I want a pass through... am I going to get with CT? Very unlikely. Are you going to get a metal roof? Very unlikely. I guess we will know in Dec... I can't wait for Dec. I'm going insane.

I want pass-thru too.

But there is a difference.

Solid metal roof is actually simpler to make and is more robust than even armor glass roof.
Even armor glass cracks. Armor crack way before 3mm cold rolled stainless steel is even close to being punctured.
Sure glass roof is cool but it is a departure from having the toughest exoskeleton body truck.
If you want the toughest tank or bunker, you do not put a skylight in it unless having that skylight is critical to your defense by viewing in that direction. Armor glass is never better protection than equal protection level of armor steel. The advantage of amor glass is that you can see thru it.
Sure on a luxury car it would be reasonable to make all cars with glass roof.
Of course glass windshield & doors. But on the roughest toughest work truck Roof, NO.
On Cybertruck, glass roof is a luxury that should be a choice but not mandatory.
So here you are only doing one thing or the other - metal roof or glass roof.
There is no engineering challenge here.

If Cybertruck did not have the rolling cover stored in bottom of truck, bed pass-thru would be pretty easy to do. But the mechanism for the rolling cover is going thru the exact location for the pass-thru.
Here we have two things that intersect in the same area & trying to get both functions to work without conflict. This is possible but much harder engineering problem. I am sure Tesla engineers are up to the job if management decides to do both.